


baby you need to leave cause i'm getting drunk on your noble deeds

by Cirkne



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Getting Together, M/M, Multi, Mythical Beings & Creatures, POV Richard, Pining, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 14:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16389755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirkne/pseuds/Cirkne
Summary: He watches them. He is consumed. Possessed. He dreams in shades of red and drags his body by the pool every night. Soon, sleep will stop being a necessity but he finds himself exhausted like he’s never been before.





	baby you need to leave cause i'm getting drunk on your noble deeds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dadsBBQparty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadsBBQparty/gifts).



> to Greg for listening to me talk about nothing but this fic for like a month

Before what once pulsed in his veins is replaced by simply hunger and the steady rhythm of his heart morphs into a whisper-like chant for blood, there’s the disgusting almost sweet smell of apples left to rot on the ground. Delirious, cushioned on a bed of damp leaves, he envisions his own limbs growing into green moss and disintegrating in the cold of the night. There’s light and then, of course, there’s darkness and then the sensation of burning right up until he passes out (or dies, the science of this he is unsure of).

He wakes up the to smell of soap and skin pressed to his bared teeth. Hands in his hair and whispering he can’t make out. After that, everything blurs together again.

*

His head filled with cotton, his eyelids heavy, his body floating, his lips dry and chapped and tasting almost familiar but different enough to send his mind spinning.

He expects the softness of Jared’s hands to keep him grounded to reality, the smell of laundry detergent to settle in his room like a layer of protection between his tired body and the heaviness of turning. His hands cold and soothing against the feverish flames of Richard’s skin and his voice like silk as he reads to him. He’s struggling to make out the words but the melody of them ease him into a never ending darkness. The loss of control that he has always feared has never felt this calming. The taste of metal on his tongue refuses to leave. He attempts to hold onto Jared as long as he can but both his arms and consciousness are too heavy to let him.

Once he becomes aware of his surroundings Jared’s presence stops being a given. Instead, the faint scent of citrus and rough fingers in his hair, on his neck, brushing his lips as Gilfoyle shoves frozen cubes of blood in his mouth. 

The intimacy of it overwhelms him. Intoxicated by the gentleness he didn’t know Gilfoyle was capable of, he loses the ability to tell dreams from reality and takes it all as a single, consuming touch, gives himself away to the sensation of being surrounded. 

His head on Jared’s lap as poetry gets recited to him and he tries his hardest to blink away the blurriness that he’s grown so accustomed to. Time stopped existing the moment he got bitten but it’s beginning to return to him and the blinds are drawn shut, light a feeling in his bones before it is anything else. 

Back when Gilfoyle got turned, Jared would spend hours locked in his room with him. Richard’s dreams turn him into the caretaker, fill his chest with longing. He dreams of running marathons and finding them waiting for him at the finish line. He dreams of Dinesh as one of them, he dreams of blood and pomegranates, of lips and skin and guts. 

When he finally wakes up, when he’s able to make out the faces, they’re both there, they both smell like copper. They’re both looking at him in a way they have never looked at him before. He wants to say it reminds him of possessiveness but how would he know, really. Jared reaches for his hand and Richard uncurls his fingers almost on instinct, hides the hitch in his breath that comes with finally feeling something fully, after his senses have been hidden by fog for so long. He licks his lips. He asks, with a voice that sounds exactly like a voice gone unused should sound like:

“How long has it been?” Months? Years? Decades? He’d have no way of knowing.

“Three weeks,” Gilfoyle answers. Richard’s uncurled the fingers of his other hand for him but Gilfoyle hasn’t gotten the hint or if he has he’s decided not to take it.

“Felt longer,” Richard says and it makes Jared smile next to him which he hasn’t seen in so long it makes his chest ache.

“Yeah,” Gilfoyle answers again, like reassurance that he knows and he does, of course, though it’s been over a year and Richard doesn’t remember if he’d been out for as long. He thinks he couldn’t have been, there’s no way Richard could have survived three weeks of them locked in a room away from him and Dinesh. Or maybe, back then, he could have. He knows he couldn’t now. 

“Oh, Richard,” Jared says as if reading his mind. “It’s so nice to have you back.” Though it seems like he adds _back_ as an afterthought. 

*

He finds his phone. He texts _did you watch star trek without me?_ and Dinesh texts back _yes_. It’s just one word. They haven’t talked in almost a month. The sound of his heartbeat lulls Richard to sleep.

*

He finds Jared on the couch in the living room and fits himself right next to him, their sides touching. Liquid pools in his chest. 

“Hey, Richard,” Jared says like he’s talking to a pet, his smile all teeth. He knows what he’s doing. He knows that even pressed to him, Richard feels too far away. He wants to open Jared up and hollow him out, make place for himself between Jared’s ribs and spine.

“Hi,” he says because he can’t let Jared know what he’s thinking. His head is spinning, he’s swimming. The house smells like citrus and roses and soap and detergent and above it all, copper. Always copper. He’s made himself an addict.

*

The first time he tries to feed on his own, he ends up throwing up in their backyard, hands and knees digging into the dirt and grass while Gilfoyle finishes off the blood bag he dropped. The blood splatter leaves dark stains on the pavement.

“Sucks,” Gilfoyle offers once the contents of Richard’s stomach have left his body. The disgusting smell of blood, stomach acid and chlorine from the pool all mixing together permeates the air. There’s no real sympathy in Gilfoyle’s voice but he helps Richard stand up and walks his shaking body to the bathroom. 

Richard, so methodically that he forgets, for a moment, that he’s no longer human and that this isn’t- shouldn’t be his normal routine, washes his hands, rinses his mouth and throws water on his face. When he bends to fill his hands with water again, Gilfoyle touches his shoulder.

“Don’t drink it,” he says, brings Richard back. Right, Richard thinks. It’d just make him sick again. Instead, he rinses his mouth once more and then stays leaning on the sink for way longer than he needs to. “You still need to feed,” Gilfoyle says eventually. He’s trying to sound annoyed but he’s uncharacteristically patient with Richard. 

“Okay,” Richard answers though he’s not sure how he’s going to. He wishes Jared was here. He took Dinesh out for coffee because they didn’t know how Richard would react to drinking relatively fresh blood. Back when Gilfoyle started feeding on his own, Richard and Dinesh watched every movie showing in theaters that week.

They walk to his bedroom, Gilfoyle’s arm around Richard’s waist for support and Richard curls up on the mattress Jared dragged from his loft bed to the floor so it’d be easier to feed him. 

“I’ll get the frozen bags,” Gilfoyle tells him as Richard buries his face in his pillow.

“And call Jared,” he asks, quietly, though aware of how childish he sounds. He thinks, maybe, Gilfoyle rolls his eyes at him but when he turns to look, Gilfoyle’s already left his room. 

Frozen blood goes down just fine. He breaks it into chunks in his mouth and swallows before it can melt. Gilfoyle made him sit up before feeding so he’s leaning his back against Gilfoyle’s side, biting at the popsicle-like blood. 

“- being the only human left is getting to his head-” Gilfoyle’s saying. He’s talking about Dinesh but Richard’s barely listening. He feels his entire body relax and the tension slips away easier than it ever has. Richard melts where he’s sitting and Gilfoyle has to hold him upright. “You’re going to choke, Dick,” he says but Richard’s unbothered by the annoyance in his voice. He finishes the blood bag and licks his fingers clean, earns a disgusted groan from Gilfoyle but he doesn’t move away or let go of him until Richard says he wants to sleep and then he stays until Richard has. 

*

They keep whispering. They walk as far away from him as they can and they whisper so he couldn’t make out anything they’re saying. It makes him restless. Overwhelmed. Tires him out.

“What were you talking about?” he asks and Jared, combing through Richard’s hair with his fingers, says:

“Nothing you have to worry about, captain, just rest,” his voice soft, his voice calm, his voice careful and gentle and soothing so Richard won’t take it as an order but he does get drowsier. Whether it’s because he’s supposed to listen to the one that turned him or because he’s well trained - he doesn’t know.

*

He watches them. He is consumed. Possessed. He dreams in shades of red and drags his body by the pool every night. Soon, sleep will stop being a necessity but he finds himself exhausted like he’s never been before. He stretches his arms out to the sky and tries to catch the change in them. His eyes start watering. 

Deprived of the distraction that coding has provided him for most of his life, he has to admit to himself what he’s doing. Why he’s watching them.

Gilfoyle wins the video game he and Dinesh are playing but by a lot less than he’s supposed to. Richard, even in a state like this would have beat him way faster. Dinesh’s screen dims as he yells out _fuck_ and stops himself from throwing the controller at the ground. Jared pops his head in for a moment, as if to check they’re behaving. He shares a look with Gilfoyle. The scores are still clearly visible. Jared grins, waits for Gilfoyle to raise his eyebrow at him and blows him a kiss. Richard, without realizing, sits up from where he’s been laying on the floor. Gilfoyle mimes blocking the kiss and then turns to where Dinesh is still trying to calm down. 

Richard’s head spins. 

_Okay_ he thinks and by the time Dinesh and Gilfoyle have finished their next game he’s no longer sure if it actually happened.

*

If he thinks about it, he’s probably felt this way for years now but he’s made himself an expert in ignoring things right in front of him. He finds Gilfoyle laying in the bathtub, fully clothed, arms crossed over his chest like a shitty, modern day version of Dracula. 

“Do you think you’ll still like your tattoos a century later?” Richard asks turning on the water in the sink to wash his hands. It’s steaming hot but it barely stings. His senses stronger yet sensations muted like his body isn’t the body he’s always had.

“No,” Gilfoyle answers him, eyes still closed, unmoving, a sculpture in a bathtub. He’s seen something like this in Pennsylvania back when he was still human or maybe he hasn’t, maybe his mind is creating false memories to make sense of that’s happening. Maybe he’s looking for connections where there are none simply because he doesn’t know how to function when his mind’s not overworked. He wouldn’t put it past himself.

*

He’s spread out on the kitchen floor, limbs as far apart as he can manage and Dinesh kicks at his shins to get him to move.

“I get that turning means you have to be dramatic but fuck’s sake, Richard,” Dinesh groans. “I can’t even make tea in this fucking house.” Richard can hear his pulse, quieter than his words but also everywhere. It’s rare that they’re allowed to be alone together but he guesses Gilfoyle’s close enough that if Richard were to do something stupid, he’d be stopped before he did any damage. 

“Sorry,” Richard says but it comes out as empty as he means it and Dinesh rolls his eyes at him as dramatically as he can. It makes Richard smile, if only a little but Dinesh is frowning down at him.

“How long are you gonna be here?” he asks, walks around Richard to get to the kettle, turns it on. Richard fights the urge to watch his chest move as he breathes, how his neck stretches when he turns to look at Richard, lifts his eyebrow at him, waiting for Richard’s reply.

“Until Jared decides I can feed again,” he answers. His voice sounds whinier than it’s supposed to but it’s hard getting used to someone else deciding when you can eat. Now that he can stay awake for longer than an hour at a time, they’ve started rationing his food. Jared says it’s only till he gets the cravings under control but it’s driving him nuts. It doesn’t help that his stomach’s too sensitive to handle fresh blood.

Dinesh pushes Richard’s body away with his foot and goes to grab a mug.

“So how’s coding?” Richard asks over the sound of the kettle. Dinesh gives him a look over his shoulder. He _knows_ how coding is. It’s hard feeling like you’re doing anything of any significance when Gilfoyle’s there being a hundred times better than you. Richard can pretend feeling inferior had nothing to do with his decision to turn but he’s bad at being second best in his own company. He wonders, just like the other two, how much longer Dinesh will last. 

The water boils. Richard watches Dinesh put a tea bag in his mug. Their kitchen is still stacked with food though only one of them eats now. Richard imagines their cupboards and fridge empty, save for the freezer. He gets Dinesh’s reluctance to be turned, now more than ever. He doesn’t know how long his decisions will be made for him. Gilfoyle, although less often now, still listens to Jared. Dinesh takes out the tea bag and holds it above his palm to catch any drops, dark red against his skin.

The drops of tea pool and run down the side of Dinesh’s palm. He throws out the bag and lifts his wrist to his lips to catch the tea with his tongue before it soaks into the sleeve of his shirt. Richard blinks though he doesn’t really have to and looks away just as Dinesh turns to him. He doesn’t think about his lips or how, if he were to feed from Dinesh’s wrist, it would still taste vaguely sweet. 

“If I give you the blood will you get up from the floor?” Dinesh asks. He wipes at his own spit with his thumb. They have strict orders not to open the freezer but Dinesh doesn’t have to listen to Jared and Richard doesn’t have enough willpower to tell him he shouldn’t so instead he nods as best as he can and drags his body away from the fridge to give Dinesh better access to the door. 

He pulls out one of the blood bags and throws it onto Richard’s chest. It doesn’t smell like much when cold but Richard can feel his body reacting, a need from somewhere deep in his bone marrow seeping into his limbs.

“Don’t. Eat while I’m here,” Dinesh warns, suddenly. “Sounds disgusting.” And Richard frowns at where his fingers are already ripping open the bag. He’s been bad at self-control since way before all this. He doesn’t realize a whine has escaped his lips till Dinesh is rolling his eyes at him, grabbing his mug and moving to the work station.

“Richard’s giving me perfect reasons not to become like you,” Dinesh says to Gilfoyle once he’s out of the kitchen. “Were you this pathetic? I feel like I would remember you being this pathetic.”

The human part of him wants to defend himself, to yell out that Dinesh shouldn’t be saying shit like that about his own boss but he’s pressing the blood to his lips instead, ignoring the definite insult that Gilfoyle responds with.

*

His mother calls. He turns off the sound on his cellphone but the buzzing follows him around the house even hours after she’s stopped trying to reach him.

*

Gilfoyle wants Dinesh to turn more than anyone else in the house. There’s something scary about the intensity of it. His teeth bared, his mug filled with blood, his eyes trained on Dinesh. He says:

“You’d make fewer errors if you were like me,” not _us_ , the moment this stops benefiting him, Gilfoyle will leave them, he has no problem with destroying connections and yet-

“Fuck off, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh says, annoyed, focused on his screen. Richard sees the shift. The tension in Gilfoyle’s shoulders. He stops pretending to breathe or blink, licks blood off of his lips. He is a predator and he is letting the disguise slip, unveiling the part of him that’s supposed to drive others away. It’s as vulnerable as Gilfoyle can get, Richard thinks. He is giving Dinesh the parts that shouldn’t be trusted and pleading him to forego his instincts.

“Gilfoyle,” Jared calls from somewhere in the house. Says. Whispers. He rarely sounds as commanding as he does now. Gilfoyle goes to him without hesitation.

“I’m not going to do anything,” but he sounds like he’s trying to justify himself, like he knows he’s guilty and then they lower their voices so Richard wouldn’t be able to make them out. 

*

Bighead, in the pixelated video of hoolichat, looks as unbothered by this as everything else. It’s as comforting as it is worrying.

“Is that all you have to say?” Dinesh asks him from where he’s sitting besides Richard. His shirt’s pink today which is a weird choice even for him and Richard’s been trying not to look at it for too long but then maybe he’s not looking for long enough.

“Yeah, man,” Bighead answers easily. His hair’s changed since the last time they saw each other. Maybe. They’re best friends but they’ve chosen to interact only when they need to. “It sucks that I can’t come over but I get it, you know.”

“You get _what_?” Dinesh’s tone, Richard recognizes, is harsher than it should be. Seems as if Dinesh wants Bighead to be upset about this. Richard blinks. Turns to him. Sees the pink shirt and turns back to look at Bighead. Almost misses: “Being a lifeless, blood sucking _monster_?”

“Woah, hey-” Richard starts to say before both Gilfoyle and Jared walk into the room from wherever they were in the house. It’s not that big and yet Richard’s never sure with them. Gilfoyle hangs up the call. Drags Richard into the kitchen. 

“I know you feel like you’re the only sane one here,” he can hear Jared saying. Picture Jared saying it. Bending, slightly, shoulders down to appear non-threatening. He used to do it whenever Richard got frustrated with code. 

“Because I am,” Dinesh counters. The hitch in his voice makes it seem like he’s desperate to be listened to. Gilfoyle opens the freezer and throws a tray of blood cubes at Richard. To distract him from the conversation, obviously. Richard takes the bait.

Later, when Dinesh has calmed down, he walks into Richard’s room to apologize though they both know Richard heard Jared telling him he has to. He’s changed his shirt. Kindly, to allow Richard to look at him, even if he would have had no way of knowing Richard was having a hard time with it.

“So,” he says. Richard nods and wins against the urge to repeat it back at him. He pauses. It’s weird looking down at him like this. Dinesh breathes out. “I just don’t get how- is there nothing you miss? No consequences to anything?”

“I miss energy drinks,” Richard tells him but he knows it’s not the right answer.

Dinesh frowns. Moves to the ladder and then climbs up to join Richard on his bunk. Neither of them says anything until they’re touching. Side by side. Richard’s knees to his chest, Dinesh’s feet dangling off the edge. 

“I get it with Gilfoyle,” Dinesh says. Maybe quieter than he would usually but not quiet enough to be sure Gilfoyle can’t hear him. “He has his whole not caring about anyone but himself thing and Jared’s probably never had anyone to care about, who knows with him.”

Richard turns to him. Dinesh is looking at something on the wall in front of them. The Back to the Future poster, maybe. Or the empty space right next to it.

“You have parents and a sister,” Dinesh tells him. Offers nothing else but it’s not hard to guess what he means. Dinesh’s mother, still, calls once a week. Richard considers saying he’s never been close with his family but Dinesh knows this.

“You don’t have to turn,” he tries instead. Becomes aware of Dinesh’s pulse and catches how it picks up.

“If I don’t, you’re going to leave me,” Dinesh closes his eyes for a moment, then turns to Richard. He’s the one that’s going to leave, eventually, but they don’t need to voice it. They’ve known each other for eight years. What’s that to an immortal? Will they even remember? 

Dinesh turns away from him again. Takes a deep breath. His pulse goes back to being the usual white noise of the house.

*

There’s blood on Gilfoyle’s lips. Richard could reach out his hand to Gilfoyle’s neck and pull him in. He _could_ but he wouldn’t. Dinesh’s coffee mug is identical to the one Gilfoyle’s using. The creek of the floorboards under his feet feels too loud. If Dinesh decides to stay human they are going to fall apart.

*

“What are we going to do?” Richard asks. The three of them have fit themselves against one another in Gilfoyle’s bed. He’s in the middle. Dinesh locked himself in his room two hours ago and they found their way to each other once he fell asleep.

“If he decides to turn,” Jared says, half into Richard’s hair. “You should be the one to do it.”

“Why?” Richard asks. One of the buttons of Gilfoyle’s shirt is digging into his arm but he doesn't want to move. The bed’s barely big enough to fit all of them.

“Oh, if I allow myself to turn all three of you,” Jared’s already explaining. “I will have too much control while you’re all still so new,” _new_ Richard thinks and for a moment pictures them as dolls Jared gets to play with and then shuts his eyes to make the image go away. 

“Why not Gilfoyle?” Richard asks. All he ever does is _ask_. They’re supposed to be here because of him but he has fallen into the place of the follower.

“Gilfoyle doesn’t want Dinesh to be dependent on him,” Jared answers. Richard turns his head as best as he can to look at Gilfoyle. He’s not looking back but he’s also not complaining about them talking about him like this. 

“I would have thought-” Richard starts but Gilfoyle jabs him in the ribs.

“Shut up,” he says. A threat, but then his arm snakes around Richard’s stomach and Richard lets himself be lulled to sleep even though he knows the other two will stay awake.

He wakes up with Gilfoyle’s arm around him replaced by Jared’s and them the only two still in bed.

“Is that what you’ve been whispering about?” Richard asks. Jared hums his confirmation. Then, obviously: “Can we date humans?”

“Not unless we have strict plans to turn them” Jared answers. In the kitchen, Gilfoyle opens the freezer, says: _did I not tell both of you to shut up?_

*

He opens his window right before dawn to breathe in the night air. There’s a dog barking a few houses down. There’s a full moon. He says:

“I should have seen this coming,” and gets no answer.

*

Digging a hole in their backyard and covering himself with dirt. Falling asleep. Waking up after they’ve shoveled more dirt on top of his body. Rotting away. Freezing to death. Opening and closing his eyes to the same darkness. Trying to call out to them and filling his insides with dirt. Turning to ash. Moving his arms. Getting out. Getting up. Waking.

Waking. 

Waking. 

He can no longer fall asleep but the dreams keep coming.

*

Jared’s taken Dinesh somewhere. They were laughing as they got into the car, the wind louder than their conversation. Richard walks around the house looking for something to do and mentally weighs the pros and cons of bothering Gilfoyle. All the clocks in the house have stopped working properly. The time no longer moves.

He turns on the lights and stares directly at them. Reminds himself to ask Jared how long it’ll be until he can go out into the sun again. Practices breathing exercises. He’s better at them now that he doesn’t need air. Puts on a movie he doesn’t care about and walks to Gilfoyle’s room twenty minutes later.

“I’m bored,” he complains. Gilfoyle’s sitting on the floor, examining a processor in his fingers. He’s wearing a light grey sweater. They no longer get cold but he’s wearing it. 

“You’re restless,” Gilfoyle answers. Doesn’t look at him. Based on the parts splayed out around him, he’s building another computer. Richard stands in the doorway and waits. Now that he no longer sleeps he can probably try coding again but it feels like it’s been too long. 

It takes maybe three minutes for Gilfoyle to finally sigh and turn to him.

“Bothering me isn’t going to make them come back faster,” he says, holds eye contact for a moment and turns back to his work. His eyes an endless abyss, Richard thinks. Waits a little longer and then walks back to the couch in the living room, leaves Gilfoyle’s door open. 

The sweater is Jared’s. The clocks still won’t move. It’s raining. 

*

Quiet humming. He calls him something. Something sticky. He has honey running down his fingers. He is buttoning up his ivory shirt. He is getting blood on the floor. He calls him _sweetheart_. He says:

“It’d be a shame if this got dirty,” and Richard has no idea what he’s talking about. They’re in the middle of the street. In the middle of the woods. He blinks. He doesn’t know where the closest woods are. Where they lead. There’s no water but something is running. A quiet _tap tap tap_. Either feet or droplets.

He’s shivering but not for lack of warmth. He’s been so good. He’s made himself synonymous with obedience. He deserves-

deserves

_deserves_

He’s on the ground. Cement against his back. So maybe not the woods. But the darkness, still. The dripping. The wind. The breeze. The heaviness of the humidity. The scent. The drumming. The blue, the red, the purple. In whichever order. The metal taste in his mouth. The voice. Both his and not at all. Waiting. 

Are they the first? How long has it been? How many more has there been? Where have they gone? 

The serenity of-

“What’s your name?” someone asks. His own voice. His own lips. 

“Jared,” _okay, Jared_ he knows this part. So how long has it been and who did this for him? _Did_ anyone do this for him? He never talks about the parts they ask for. He lets things slip but never enough to make sense of anything. Are they the first but no, actually, are they the last? Can Richard convince Jared to make them the last? 

He stands. Not Richard. Stands. Laughs. Not this time but he does, sometimes. How he stops himself from laughing. How much control he has over his body. How his features twist with his words. Richard’s big eyed. Caught. Red handed. Quite literally, if it ever happens. That’s a joke he should try to remember for later. Jared might like it. If not, at least, Dinesh. 

Jared. Right. His Adam’s apple. His chin. His hair. His fingers. His collarbones. His nose. His wrists. His eyes. He no longer exists in their space. There’s no verticality to his body. There’s no body. He’s a washing machine. Weird comparisons, yes, but Richard knows this to be true. You open him- no, not yet. You open the detergent compartment. You are swallowing fabric softener and he is swallowing bleach. You do this together. One of you is sacrificing yourself or maybe the dependency isn’t as one sided as you thought. The laundry detergent doesn’t reach either of your insides but it’s there. So you open him up. So you fit yourself inside him and you let him spin you. You are out of control and he is working perfectly. There’s more fabric softener. There’s more bleach. You come out clean. Drenched. You smell of him. 

Richard’s hands against Jared’s barely visible stubble. After. 

“Okay, enough for now,” Jared says. Releases him. Richard blinks.

He’s lying in the middle of the street. It was two am when they came out here. It’s maybe four now. Jared’s standing out of reach but visible. He’s smiling. Soft.

“You did so good,” Jared again. They’re surrounded by houses. Which is to say, they’re surrounded by the heartbeats of at least forty people sleeping in their beds. That’s as much as Richard can count right now.

The idea was to strip him of the human parts and see if he would try to do anything. If he’s safe. When they left, Jared whispered something about behaving under his breath. 

Gilfoyle was watching some foreign movie on the couch, Dinesh sleeping half on top of him. Self control takes the longest to teach but Richard’s learning fast. He stands up. He stumbles, almost but then Jared’s holding him up. 

“Oh, captain, you’re weak, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have made your first time this long but you were doing so well and I thought, if you can last, we’ll need less lessons and you’ll stop having to depend on me, oh how foolish of me, I’m so sorry,” of course. _Of course_. Richard’s too tired to tell him to stop. So he leans. He turns. He lifts his hand to Jared’s lips. He thinks _shut up_ as hard as he can. Maybe it works. The next time he opens his eyes, they’re back home.

Dinesh and Gilfoyle have moved to one of the bedrooms.

“This isn’t healthy,” Jared says when they find them, Dinesh sleeping on Gilfoyle’s chest, Gilfoyle’s eyes trained on something on the ceiling.

“I know,” is all they get. Jared still hasn’t let go of Richard. 

*

Gilfoyle goes on a blood run. Jared offers to cook Dinesh dinner. Richard opens his laptop for the first time in months. It all comes back as easily as it went.

*

It feels like instead of the wave getting smaller as it nears the shore like it’s supposed to, it grows until it hits him full force, submerges his body, takes him back with it.

There’s a wedding invitation set on top of Dinesh’s keyboard, gold lining around the words.

“Okay,” he says when they’re all sitting on the couch watching a movie, hours after Jared’s brought him the envelope from the mailbox. “You can turn me when I get back from it.”

It takes a moment but then, as if his body moves on his own, Richard leans over the couch and kisses Dinesh before Gilfoyle can. By the time he registers what he’s done, Dinesh is kissing him back, curling his hands in Richard’s shirt, his body warm where they’re touching, his lips soft. He feels so fragile in his hands, as delicate as spring blossoms, just as refreshing too. 

“Finally,” Jared says somewhere behind them, like he was sure it was going to happen. He brings his hands to rest gently on Richard’s ribs, almost hold him in place as if he knows that Richard feels like he’s going to fall apart. He probably does. He always does. Oh, Richard wants to kiss him too so he pulls away from Dinesh knowing that the moment he lets go of him, Gilfoyle will devour him and he turns to kiss Jared.

He puts his hands on Jared’s face and for a moment is so overwhelmed with what is happening that he can’t move, just looks at him, at his endless eyes.

“Please,” Jared whispers, like he needs to ask for this, like Richard might take it away. _No_ he thinks _I’m the one that should be begging for you_ and presses their lips together. 

He wants to stay here. He wants to exchange his immortality for this one moment on loop, forever. 

When they pull away, Dinesh and Gilfoyle are still kissing. 

“Share,” Jared says softly and Gilfoyle flips him off but then lets go of Dinesh, pulls Richard into his lap instead.

“Didn’t take you for a guy who makes the first move, Dick,” he says. He’s smiling. Richard wraps his arms around Gilfoyle’s neck and hums, kisses him.

The shore keeps getting further away. It’s been too long. If he drowns, it will have been worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the 5th version of this fic if that tells u anything about how much i struggled with it. most of the vampire lore is from twilight and im. yeah. sounds right. 
> 
> title from vampire smile by kyla la grange


End file.
